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If you are a VC and you are unclear where to invest then this post might be of interest to you.

Some Disruptive Technologies and ideas that startups might be working on or for which you might want to assemble a team:

Alternative networks

WiFi and 3/4/5G have their limitations. Any alternative networking technology that can change complete industries is probably a good pick. An example would be LiFi.Networks as a Service – Software-Defined Networks – Openflow

This area is very hot at the moment. Today’s network are very hard to configure and manage, they are very tightly-coupled with hardware, they can not be extended easily.

Anything that makes Software-Defined Networks/Openflow easy for mass adoption is going to be a winner.

Anything that allows enterprises to buy a box once and get the network software later based on day-to-day business requirements, e.g. think about appstore for Openflow.

Kaggle + Kickstarter => competition together with crowdfunding. Who can build the best solution for this problem, gets their venture funded.

Nail-it-then-scale-it/Lean Startup type of crowdsourcing in which ideas get tested (e.g. paper prototypes, business model discovery, etc. before actual prototype) and funding is delivered bit by bit. Ideally with stock options of the funders in the new venture.Enterprise/Consumer Telecom

Managed enterprise software-defined networks or BYOD – services that help enterprises to maintain their networks or devices that employees bring along in a managed way hence no experts need to be hired and the service is pay-as-you-go instead of CAPEX.

These are just a handful of ideas. If you want more or need more detail, let me know at maarten at telruptive dot com. Also if you are in need of an external adviser or executive in a new venture, let me now…

There are more phones sold than PCs. In the near future there will be many, many, many more phones sold than PCs. Also most of these phones will be smartphones. Tablets are also going to surpass PC sales in the coming years.

With so many mobile phones and tablets how can the telecom industry generate new revenues?

The first thing to understand is what are people doing on their mobile. Any other industry would need to start doing surveys. However the telecom industry just needs to check their networks. This is the first possible new revenue stream. Big Data business intelligence about what mobile users are doing. Are they buying apps? From where? Are they using apps? Which ones? Are they browsing the web? Where? The data volumes are massive but the value is extremely high. Machine learning could be used to cluster different types of users. As soon as these clusters are big enough then it is possible to sell the data. The more precise the clustering, the higher the value.

If you know what customers do, then help them to do it better

Via opt-in it would be possible to actively help users. Recommendation based on similarity is possible: other users have “bought this app”, “looked at this page”, “subscribed to this service”, etc. If successful then advertisement will generate revenues.

Enable others to accelerate the mobile revolution

What would an entrepreneur need to start a mobile business? Likely 80-90% of the needs are the same:

Be the restaurant, tool shop and hotel, next to the gold mine. Do not try to look for gold. Try to make money from the gold diggers. Provide enablement services.

What would an enterprise need to manage the mobile revolution?

Everybody brings their own smartphone and tablet to work. This can save the company millions in purchasing equipment but on the other hand costs a lot more money in management.

Enabling new devices to connect to enterprise resources.

Securing access (storage encryption, single sign-on, etc.).

Monitoring usage.

Mobilizing business processes.

Helpdesk support.

etc.

Bring your own device (BYODaaS) and mobile business processes as a service (MBPaaS) are areas to focus on.

What would consumers need from the mobile revolution?

Lots of things. Unfortunately consumers are already heavily catered for by Apple, Facebook and Google. Operators are likely to fail if they go in direct competition with over-the-top players. However operators also have a history of being difficult to work with, slow and greedy. There is no killer app. There are only some assets operators have that are still valuable:

Who calls who? (On iPhones and Androids this asset is becoming less valuable)

Free call forwarding (Lots of business models do not survive paid call forwarding, e.g. Voicemail in the Cloud, PBX for consumers, etc.)

Quality of Service (every day seems more like location. A big promise but at the end somebody else found a workaround.)

Apigee bought Usergrid. Usergrid is the type of Mobile PaaS that you would expect mobile operators to be launching. Usergrid is open source as well as available as a hosted service. Usergrid allows mobile developers to focus on mobile apps and not on the server. Everything from storing users, groups, roles, single sign-on authentication, social aspects (e.g. likes), feeds, queries, connections between users and objects (e.g. which friends of user X like restaurant Y), etc. is dealt with via an incredibly easy REST API. Usergrid also comes with toolkits for easy iOS and Android development.

Usergrid is impressive both as an idea as well as in how easy it is to build complex mobile applications, e.g. collective voting during a conference, etc. without back-end developement.

What is next?

Combining Usergrid with one of the many visual drag-and-drop mobile app development tools would allow users to create complete mobile apps without coding.

Being able to integrate other API based services into the same visual drag-and-drop development tool would allow even more complex applications: e.g. look at programmableweb for a list of thousands of public APIs. However ideally also private APIs (e.g. towards enterprise back-office systems) could be incorporated.

2012 will be the year in which Apple’s mobile app revolution will be translated to every device (PCs, tablets, mobiles, signage, m2m, cars, TVs, etc.) and to the enterprise. Instead of a static company portal and an IT-driven software selection, 2012 will bring apps to the enterprise. Workers will be able to use their PC’s browser as well as a BYOD (bring your own device) to select apps from a company-wide or global enterprise app store. No longer will you have to pay for an annual license to edit a video, image or CAD drawing if you only use it twice a year. Software will be a lot more social. Not only IT will loose power, also marketing and upper management. Crowd-sourcing can allow employees to vote and rate and as such let content and opinions bubble up that might not always fit upper management’s strategy. However when used correctly the opinions are likely to beat any internal reporting system or dashboard in accuracy.

What is still pending?
Except for easy-to-use apps, inter-app and Backoffice integration is very important. Expect new “standards” based on innovative dotcom solutions in this area. Enterprise PaaS, a là Salesforce.com but often in private cloud, will move a lot of Excel and Access apps into SaaS apps. Employees will be the major enterprise app creators and no longer programmers.

Easy over training
This app revolution will focus on mini apps with basic functionality and no longer full enterprise solutions that do everything but in a too complex way.

Telecom’ s involvement?
What I described so far sounds like an IT platform and solution however it will span communication services as well. The link between IT and telecom will become very blurry. For this reason it is important for operators to be active in this market.

October 12th 2011 Techcrunch declared the day SMS began to die. Why? 10-12 is the day that iOS5 was made available to the general public. In this update there is a new functionality called iMessage. iMessage will check if the person you are sending an SMS to is also using iMessage. If this is the case then the SMS will be sent as an instant message and not as an SMS. The technology is not new (e.g. Whatsapp, Blackberry Messenger). However it is the first time that users will no longer have to install a separate application and choose if they want to send an instant message or an SMS. Android is likely to follow shortly. Also interconnection between iMessage and other platforms is still necessary. However this is clearly an example of the Innovator’s Dilemma, disrupting an industry via the use of disruptive technology.

So why the Hurray? This is very bad news because thousands or even millions of jobs might be at stake in mobile operators all over the world.

The hurray is because innovation will finally come back to the telecom industry. The beginning of the end of the CFO promoted to COO promoted to CEO a.k.a. CFEO [FEO in Spanish means ugly]. The bean counters that were warned years ago that disruptive technology would destroy the mobile industry as we know it. However they choose to ignore the message and put into place RFP processes that kill any innovation, make investments based on short-term business cases, substitute vision & strategy for ROI, etc.

With major risk of disruption, it is time for mobile operators to embrace new ideas. To invest in innovative solutions. To try out new unproven business models. Or face the consequences. Me2-strategies are no longer enough.

Don’t understand the message as if this is a return to the nineties where venture capital kept even the most rediculous dotcom alive (e.g. pets.com, webvan.com).

The next ten years will be the age of the commercially skilled visionaries leading the most successful companies. The CEOs that can look futher ahead then next quarter but that do not focus on research for research but on the next big business. CFO’s and COO’s will be still milking the cashcows. However the CEO will be worried about next year and no longer about next quarter. The tragedy in life is that the one person that knew this period was going to come, passed away before it even started. This article is in memory of the greatest visionary of modern times: Steve Jobs…

Telefonica recently restructured its business units and now has a separate business unit called Telefonica Digital that is ran from the UK and has several offices around the world: Sillicon Valley, Madrid, etc.

Telefonica Digital is a clear sign that the traditional telecommunication business is no longer going to be the growth engine for Telefonica. So what should Telefonica Digital focus on. Here are five ideas. Some are already partially in progress but ease-of-use, consistency and completeness often can be improved.

1) Become the European Netflix

Google and others are likely to enter into the European market for all-you-can-eat video-on-demand, a.k.a. pay a monthly fee and see all movies, music, series, documentaries, etc. you want. Netflix is the American success story however there is still a window of opportunity to become the European one. Having great content is key in this market. However the most important competitor is not a company but a protocol: P2P. Some European countries have high piracy rates. People are getting accustomed to downloading movies and music for free. The longer Hollywood holds on to high prices in the digital age, the more chances there are that people will not want to pay any more for content. Even when all-you-can-eat service becomes available. Sometimes it is better to have every family pay €15/month then to have almost nobody pay €20/DVD.

2) Long-Tail Partner Eco-System

Open system for partners, big and small, to easily integrate into Telefonica’s back-office systems. Partners should be able to:

Standard revenue sharing arrangements in which partners get the lion share.

Having a long list of long-tail partners will boost innovation at a relatively small cost. A regular operator takes 12-24 months from idea to production launch. In the digital era, new services should be launched daily. Without partners this is impossible. Telefonica should focus on lowering the entry level so two people in their garage can benefit as well.

3) Telco & Mobile PaaS

Offer easy to use telecom APIs to key assets like billing, network quality of service, user profiles, micropayment subscriptions, etc. Allow developers to integrate these telecom APIs into SaaS and mobile apps/SaaS. Have tools to easily create mobile SaaS and native apps. A cloud-based environment to host SaaS. Have a marketplace where customers can easily buy and provision the combined solutions. Solutions to support customers that need help for solutions they have purchased.

4) M2M PaaS

Similar to Telco PaaS but for machine-to-machine and the Internet of Things. Specific hardware plug-and-play functionality, backoffice plugins for monitoring/alarming/management interfaces, etc.

5) The Paypal of Mobile Payment

Operators have a limited time left before alternative systems will disrupt the micro-payment “oligopoly”. NFC solutions, micro-payment subscriptions, mobile payment, etc. are still not standard. Mostly not because of technical limitations but because the whole eco-system wants to see a high margin business. High-volume low-margin would however change the potential of short-term success. What if a micro-subscription (€0,10/month) would leave a merchant with €0,09 instead of €0,05 or less? The window of opportunity is closing fast however…

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